Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [145]
“I copy, Lead.” I laughed aloud as we came in on our return approach to the training facility. “Promotes longevity.”
“It’s good you think that way—we’ve got a mission.”
“A mission?” I coughed lightly and, raising my hand reflexively, bounced it off the helmet’s faceplate. “I’ve logged, what, all of an hour on this beast?”
“Better than some of the pilots with the Red Nova crew. They ran into Rogue Squadron a couple of months back and got hammered pretty damned hard.” I heard a low chuckle. “Don’t worry, we won’t be doing anything like that this time out. Just a simple loot-n-scoot.”
I cut my throttle out and brought the repulsorlift coils online as we neared the hangar. “The Invidious going to be with us?”
“Nope, this is personal business.” Kech laughed harshly. “Won’t be that lucrative, but will feel very good.”
The mission, it turned out, had its roots in the Imperial assault on the Eyttyrmin Batiiv pirates—the attack that reduced them to the sorry company known as the Khuiumin Survivors. The Imperial Victory-class Destroyers Bombard and Crusader had killed over ninety-seven percent of the pirates, leaving them with the Backstab and a handful of fighters. The Survivors had sworn they would avenge themselves on the captains of those two Destroyers, and one, Captain Zlece Oonaar, had obtained passage on the Galaxy Chance. Someone on Chance had decided that selling Oonaar out was a better bet than anything being offered in the onboard casino, and word got to Nive.
The Chance was a Corellian corvette that a rival of Booster’s had outfitted as a miniature version of the Errant Venture. I think Booster would have ignored Chance except for one thing: the owner had painted it bright red. Booster had wanted to do that with the Errant Venture, but nowhere in the galaxy could he find enough red paint to do the job. In fact, the only color available in sufficient quantity at reasonable prices was Star Destroyer White—a fact that Booster considered proof that the Emperor had been out to annoy him personally all along.
To describe the briefing we got before heading out as marginal is to code up a new definition for the word. I got slapped into third flight, with Caet and two other females, both human. I got the designation “Rock Nine” purely by chance, but that was good since I would answer to it almost reflexively. Our flight was given the task of flying cover while the other two Rock flights neutralized Chance’s weaponry and eliminated the four Uglies—TIE-wings, it was speculated. Backstab would carry us to the site, and a Skipray blastboat would go over and pluck Oonaar from the Chance. The other flights got the shot at Chance because they were all true Survivors, not just folks who had joined later like me.
It struck me that a mission of such importance would have been a natural for Bolt Squadron, but I was informed that Nive had drawn a squadron for the honor at random. I had no doubt Remart was regretting his shift to Bolt Squadron. I got the impression that none of the other pilots in Rock Squadron were sorry to see him gone, and more than a few thought his discomfort at being left out was rather delicious.
We got shuttled up to the Backstab and went EV to get into our fighters. Like TIE-fighters, the Tri-fighters had no atmosphere or life support equipment, requiring us to carry our own. This made going EV and crawling up over the hull to get into our ships less difficult than if X-wing pilots were to try it. I made it in, secured my hatch, powered up and checked in. Others did likewise, but in no way was there very much comm discipline called for or observed.
The Backstab went to lightspeed, made one interim jump, and then headed off toward where the Chance was supposed to be. Our trip took a full three hours and, for the first time, I really appreciated